UCL DEPARTMENT OF SPACE & CLIMATE PHYSICS

David Willetts visits UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory

16 August 2013

David Willetts, Minister of State for Universities and
Science, visited UCL’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory on Tuesday 13th August.
The minister inspected a number of instruments which are being built at the
laboratory for future scientific spacecraft, including Euclid, ExoMars and
Solar Orbiter, as well as hearing about MSSL’s role at the heart of the UK and
European space programme.

Mr Willetts’ visit marked the formal beginning of the testing and characterisation phase for the camera detectors that will fly on Euclid. The tests were initiated when the minister took a self portrait (see image to the right). Euclid is a future ESA space telescope which will study the dark cosmos – the 95% of the content of the Universe which is invisible.

Euclid’s detectors will form the heart of a huge and
technologically advanced camera for space. The detectors are being built by UK
company e2v, which has a long-standing and close relationship with MSSL, where
the camera electronics are being built. After launch in 2020, Euclid will have
the largest detector array in orbit, second only to the Gaia mission – also a
project at MSSL and which is due to launch in November this year – and will
produce the largest images ever taken from space. “We’re very pleased to have
Mr Willetts formally instigate this test programme”, Professor Mark Cropper,
lead of the Euclid camera said, “especially as it involves close collaborations
between industry, agencies and academia across Europe. This is exactly the
transfer of expertise and knowledge that is being sought by the Government”.

The minister also visited the laboratories where the
scientific camera for the ExoMars rover is being built. The ExoMars rover, a
joint mission of ESA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos, will be Europe’s
first Mars rover, and is expected to touch down on the red planet in 2019 and
analyse samples from up to 2m below the Martian surface for the first time.

MSSL leads the international team building the panoramic
camera system (PanCam) which will produce high quality 3D and zoomed-in
photographs of the rover’s surroundings. High quality scientific imaging does
not just provide pretty pictures: it produces geological and atmospheric
context for the whole life-seeking mission.

Professor Andrew Coates, Principal Investigator of PanCam,
said “The minister was pleased to see our team's developments for the only
UK-led instrument on the rover. MSSL's unique blend of scientific expertise and
engineering excellence has enabled us to push the science to the limit of what
can be achieved with a surface camera, and provide the PanCam system role”.

After visiting the ExoMars lab, the minister donned
protective clothing to enter one of MSSL’s cleanrooms, where the electron
sensor for the Solar Wind Analyser (SWA) instrument is currently being developed,
built and tested. This device, one of 3 sensors being provided by the
international SWA consortium led by MSSL, will be part of the scientific
payload for ESA’s Solar Orbiter mission, planned for launch in 2017. In
addition to the lead role in SWA, MSSL is also heavily involved in the
development of the Solar Orbiter Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging telescope, making
the laboratory one of the main providers of in-situ and remote sensing scientific
instrumentation for the mission.

Solar Orbiter will have an orbit which will take it close to
the Sun (inside the orbit of Mercury) and allow it to travel fast enough to be
able to track, over extended periods of time, features on the Sun’s surface as
it rotates. The mission has a unique
scientific payload which will both allow detailed study of these features,
together with the direct sampling of plasma and charged particles which they
eject into the Solar system via the Solar wind.
Professor Chris Owen, Principal Investigator of SWA said, “SWA is a
vital element in the Solar Orbiter suite of sensors. It will sense the
environment around the spacecraft and provide the means by which plasma
processes observed remotely on the Sun can be linked to their output exhausts
in the solar wind. This is a key objective of the Solar Orbiter mission.” The
spacecraft’s orbit will also take it out of the plane of the Earth’s orbit, providing
a viewpoint looking ‘down’ on the poles of the Sun – regions which have never
been clearly seen by any probe before.

MSSL scientist Lucie Green, who organised the minister’s
visit, said: “It was wonderful to have the Minister visit MSSL. It shows the Government recognises the
world-leading space engineering and science we carry out at UCL.”